فرحانة

RMIT Communication Design // Reflective Journal

[xinyi-jia]

10 / 04 / 2016   TEST WITH SHEET 

(YEP…… ANOTHER TEST)

This time Farhana brought us the white sheet to test, firstly how to hang up the sheet is the big problem, like the first picture, we firstly just threw the sheet through the ropes and it turned out to be very short. Then we changed the way to hang up the sheet and it finally seemed like a screen. But after that I realized that it maybe too short and should not be as that wide, so we fold that sheet and hang the other side of the sheet on the rope, then the test went well except the faces in the video will be distorted while moving. Then we test the canvas on the ceiling as well and this time according to Sarah’s advice, we may manipulate the video from horizontal to vertical to fit the canvas cause the canvas is long and narrow, and another problem occoured to us was how to make the projector stand up if it is set up on the ground. We gonna think about that and discuss with the case that Andy gave us(actually only received by Juyee) 

[farhanaism]

Thanks for the summary Sylvie!!

[xinyi-jia]

06 / 09 / 2016 Workshop

In this workshop we as a group of food pitch, looked at other groups’ final presentation document, we analysed and found there are some groups that can be associated with and summarize them into several key words so that it is clear to find out:

group 12: recycled materials/ furniture/ decoration

this group is working on sorts of the same area as our group — decorations, also have some relationship with our paper stories so we thought maybe there is some possibilities to work together. 

group 20: food stamping/ collective work from100+students/ interactive activity

this group has almost the same purpose as our group — to make people interactive, if we combine with them, the power of the interaction may be more stand out.

group 6: furniture/ decorations / helping others / craft 

this can be also a group to work with cause it also involved with decorations or something like that.

group 16: magazine documenting/ experiences week by week

this is a group of document but the point is that maybe our groups’ final outcomes can be used for them.

group 5: individual postcards/ photo & messages

we can work with them cause we can arrange and collect the materials together, maybe combine the two events together as well for the reason that our two groups materials are almost the same.

After we decided which group to work with, we began to contact with them with the email address on the google doc(Andy gave us), me try to contact with group 5 and farhana try to contact with group 20(they contact us before for opportunities to collaborate), what’smore in the lecture of Wednesday , the group of light and sound(Abbey) told me that they also want to work with us and we finally made it to discuss with group 5/20 and Abbey’s group at Friday soup time:) It seems that Friday will be a big day for us.

[nana-dekoko]

(Photo: courtesy of @crazykitch) 

11.09.16.. Giant fruit bus stops exists! 🍓🍈🍅

For the past few days, I’ve been surfing the internet to look for inspirations and ideas to keep my creativity mind flowing. Design boom and Bored panda/art are one of my favorite sites to find one-of-a kind articles. 

Tonight, I came along to this particular article  on Frankie Magazine Website, featuring ‘fruit-shaped’ bus stops in Japan–What! As I’ve never seen or heard about this, I thought this was a temporary installation perhaps for some sort of exhibition. However, even after 26 years, these gigantic fruits remain Today, in the city of Konagai in Nagasaki Prefecture. These adorable fruit-shaped bus stops were built in 1990 for the Travel Expo, originally held in Osaka. In total there are 16 fruit bus stops with five different fruits or ‘flavours’ –strawberry, melon, tomato, orange and watermelon! These fruits have attracted visitors from different locations, increasing the number of tourists now being a popular local tourist attraction in the small town of Konagai. Although they are obviously not edible, this project revolves around the same topic of ‘food’. This particular project specifically takes part in location–way finding. These colorful, pop and gigantic fruit bus stops allow visitors and tourists to allocate their way, now being an iconic landmark of Konagai. After all- they are just a bus stop, but its quite fascinating to reach so many visitors in this small town, intending to see this innovative bus design!  - Reference: "Japan’S Fruit-Shaped Bus Stops". Frankie.com.au. N.p., 2016. Web. 11 Sept. 2016.

[farhanaism]

This reminds me of a place I visited in Indonesia, where the toilet block and office were inside fruit-shaped buildings! 

image source 

[farhanaism]

29.07.16

FOOD: First group meet-up! 

A collection of photos from our time at Brother Bubba Budan. Ft. a slightly scary face-swap inspired by Yusa’s group! 

Audio: The result of me secretly recording some of our conversations to capture the atmosphere. (Matta-Clark wannabe)

Group members: Ju Yee, Sylvie, Sarah, Farhana. 

[farhanaism]

27.07.16  

A brainstorm of some Soup Kitchen rules

Group members: Lani, Sarah, Sylvie, Adrian, Indra and Farhana.

[farhanaism]

Design an experience around a meal and participate in it.

Our aim this semester

[farhanaism]

[farhanaism]

Ask Me Anything // Final and Reflection

Using the questions I had chosen and edited, I incorporated them into the poster. I printed it off on 210gsm gloss paper at Officeworks because I find it gives a vivid and lively finish that reflects the energy and passion that Jasmine has for her work. 

Looking back, this project pushed me to do things I had been scared to do in the past. The first was trying to contact creatives I had previously only admired from afar. Luckily, the fact that we are assessed on this (hopefully) shielded me from coming across as selfish and only wanting contact for personal gain. I also learnt how to deal with rejection after having high hopes that people would respond. 

The flexibility of this project was both exciting yet terrifying. On one hand, we had so much freedom to explore and create but on the other hand, the lack of boundaries came with immense pressure. That is why, when I found myself with little time to complete the presentation due to my circumstances, I began to panic and stress. However, after taking a step back, I decided to go with my instincts and draw inspiration from Jasmine’s work and attitude towards what she does. 

Deciding to just “go for it”, I must admit the completion of my poster was done in a frenzy of ideas being spilled out onto the page. By using a combination of instinct and doing what I love, I finally completed the task. Overall, like all of our projects for this course, it was eye-opening and boundary-pushing and slightly terrifying, but I enjoyed it just the same :)

[farhanaism]

Mood board

Ask Me Anything // pt.X

After Jasmine answered all my questions, I went through a process of editing them. I combined some of the answers into one, because they had a similar subject matter. Additionally, I noticed that some of my questions were a bit wordy so I edited them down too. Finally, I chose my favourite 5 to work into the presentation.

I had originally thought of making a series of art prints to display her words, however the time constraints did not permit. I then decided to do an A3 poster instead, as many of her popular works are in this style.

Messing around in illustrator, I began by making creating a “mood board” of different elements for the poster that reflected Jasmine’s signature style, down to the colour palettes she utilises on both her website and Instagram.

[farhanaism]

Ask Me Anything // pt.IX

Things are looking up! 

Luckily, after being notified about Peter’s unavailability, Jasmine Dowling (#3 on my list) finally replied to my interview request as she had been overseas at the time. I was super excited, however at this point, time was running out so I had to research and develop questions quickly and intensely. 

I sent her 9 questions initially, asking her to respond to the ones she liked best. For a while, I had no response, and by this point I had gone ahead and started planning the presentation. In an act of desperation, I plucked up the courage to comment on her recent Instagram post, kindly asking her to respond:

To my astonishment, she answered my email within the hour. Inspired by her responses, I asked her 2 more questions the next day, which she also promptly responded to. Additionally, she gave me permission to use any of her photos for my presentation. 

My final 11 questions were:

Who or what has been a significant influence on your work as a whole?

What motivates your projects and artworks? What drives you to keep going?

What do you aspire to achieve through your work?

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received/given?

How would you describe your creative style? How did it develop?

How did you get into lettering/graphic design/blogging?

Where do you draw inspiration from?

As a creative person, mistakes and failures happen frequently. How do you deal with a "creative block"?

What mottos or mantras do you live by?

You mentioned that you like to use juxtaposition in your work. What emotions do you aim to convey through this technique/ through your work as a whole?

You have mentioned several times on your blog about the issue of copyrights, imitation and originality. Your advice towards fellow creatives in combating these issues is inspiring. It makes me wonder, do you ever fear that after moving out of your comfort zone or "pigeon hole", you may not be able to develop a style that is uniquely yours? How do you overcome the challenge of creating something original in a design world where it seems like everything has already been done?

[farhanaism]

Ask Me Anything // pt.VIII

A bumpy start 

I sent off my questions to eL Seed but waited two weeks with no reply :( However, I wasn’t too worried because I had sent questions to Peter Gould as well and knew he was likely to respond. 

Unfortunately, the it was bad timing, as Peter went overseas for business in the week that the brief was given. After realising he was unlikely to reply, I became worried. These fears were confirmed when I got this email from his secretary:

[farhanaism]

Tumblr: a reflection

Using tumblr as an integral part of this course was a new and interesting experience for me. I’ve never used the platform before and initially, it took me a while to get used to it. 

Telling people I had tumblr posts to make for homework was humorous. Some were intrigued and some were confused by the way that we’ve been using this social media platform as a learning tool. However, despite the strangeness of this situation, I really enjoyed uploading and sharing my work. 

Not only did it help me keep track of my studies, but I got to see what everyone else was up to. One unexpected side-effect was the fact that I slowly became “tumblr-post-ready”, meaning that I was always on the hunt for things to new things to post and write about. This was good, because I got used to perceiving my surroundings differently, and reflected more deeply about the content that we were being taught in class. However, at times is was a bad thing because it would make an experience less meaningful and more opportunistic. 

Overall, using tumblr has been a positive experience. Through it, i’ve expanded my knowledge and provided a platform for family and friends to see what I get up to (since no one seems to understand). It is great for sharing and discussing the world we live in and i’ll definitely keep on using it in the future.

[atticusnicolai-blog]

Ive always been a fan the generated art and those cool logos you sometimes see that are modular and adaptable. So one night while testing out some ideas for the 100 questions book, I started doing this. Initially they were simply meant to to interesting shapes, but i kept finding letter patterns popping up as isometric and 2D planes. 

As this course is summing up I’ve really found myself more consciously (and in this case unconsciously) exploring letterforms in everyday life and the work that everyone has done here has been incredible and sublime. You all have your heads screwed on the right way!

ps. I know the colours are terrible! but I didn’t want to change them from their original state! (I just grabbed a whole bunch of the default swatches)

[s3380770-blog]

@atticusnicolai teach me how!

[atticusnicolai-blog]

@s3380770 Its super easy, ill show you the whole process in colour and information design… Largely just the blend tool though!

[sashaaarons-blog]

woah these are fantastic! absolutely love the 3-dimensional effect created, and even though the colours could be considered ‘terrible’ i think they weirdly work! love it!!

[caitiephilpott-blog]

These are sick! It’s cool how the colour also influences the way you perceive the letter and it’s form

[smuelrichards-blog]

This is so pleasing. I agree with the statement about exploring letterforms in everyday life and it’s great to see unique work being generated from curiosity. It’s cool how the overlap and sharp angles give a great sense of depth to the typeface

[oh-ok-ok]

yooo these are great, and i definitely agree with the above comment about how the ‘terrible’ colour choices work really well. if anything, i think they add a further edge to each letterform by offsetting the smooth gradation that makes them all the more interesting to look at. v nice v cool 👌👌

[sodesign-blog1]

super fun, you could also generate an animated GIF from these to give the work another dimension (of time)… remind me to give you the details about Karen’s Processing workshop, where you could code a little program to generate these all day long :) Thanks –A

[atticusnicolai-blog]

I made it woo! Thanks for the idea Andy! :))

[glowingbulb-blog]

never underestimate the ugly default swatches! this is so cool.

[farhanaism]

wow this looks great! I, too, have definitely found myself both consciously and subconsciously exploring typography in my day to day life. 

[crookedindifference-deactivated]

We could never design a building as beautiful as the trees.

Pietro Belluschi, Architect  (via floriental)

I came across this quote a while back and I do completely agree. I feel like ultimately as designers we are natures creations, attempting to create things as beautiful as nature. 

(via sashaaarons)

Such a beautifully worded way of describing something I have been aware of since the beginning of this course. We are constantly being bombarded by information and design everywhere we go, sometimes in a urban city environment we can be caught up in the world we have created. While what all that we do can all be linked back to nature and our ‘roots’, its success is something to consider in our design and art as being measured by nature.

(via isa-i-mcgrath)

Could’t agree more!

[farhanaism]

Ask Me Anything! // pt.VII

Researching eL Seed

I was going to write my own introduction, but I think the one on his website sums it up best! “eL Seed is a ‘calligraffiti’ artist, a blend of the historic art of Arabic calligraphy and  the modern art of graffiti, mixing street culture from Paris and Arabic  history to poetic effect. Born to Tunisian parents in the suburbs of Paris, eL Seed spent his formative years juggling different cultures, languages, and  identities.”

Here are some of his works that have caught my attention, and will help form the basis of my questions. 

His most recent work, titled “perception”, which can only be viewed in its entirety from a certain vantage point. 

eL Seed’s TED Talk (2015), Street Art for Hope and Peace

His collaboration with Louis Vuitton

[isa-i-mcgrath-blog]

P E R S O N A L  C O L L A G E

Over the past couple of weeks I have become tired of my room. So I decided to create a wall collage or mural of images that inspire me, collected from magazines, books, postcards and posters to name a few things. 

It was a exciting project to undertake and has really helped me understand as a designer what inspires and attracts me. I focused on combining art from across all of art and design history. This has allowed me to develop a certain aesthetic not only in the space I inhabit but also in my work. 

I have called it a ‘collage’ of sorts, in that it has drawn lots on images from all over the place - including some of my own work, cutting and layering it together to create it something entirely new. I would really recommend that people try this, it creates something deeply personal, as each thing I have connected to meaningfully, therefore is in effective of collage of my own creative mind. 

[karacomdesign-blog]

I love this idea and have actually been wanting to do something like this within my own room for a while. It looks so inspiring and lovely, nice work!

[ash-mads]

I suppose this is quite similar to a mood board. Which is something I also want to do in my room. To gain inspiration from different magazines and iconic images, I would also have the same idea.

I think it’s very clever, it looks incredible and is definitely effective.

[farhanaism]

Wow this looks amazing! I totally agree, the action of cutting and combining different things that inspire you can create something that is entirely your own. 

[farhanaism]

Ask Me Anything! // pt. VII

Came across this great book in the library! It’s full of interviews with different designers, each being asked different questions. I hope to find some inspiration and ideas from here.